Prehistoric Animals

What animal was the first to leave water for land? What is the oldest known bird? What was the heaviest dinosaur? How did dinosaurs eat? Why did the dinosaurs disappear? What did prehistoric animals look like?

These and many other questions are answered by William Scheele in Prehistoric Animals, the story in word and picture of the first five hundred million years of life on earth. From the time the first life appeared in the shallow seas that covered most of the earth to the period hundreds of millions of years later when the dinosaurs became extinct, many strange fish, insects, animals and birds roamed the world. They preyed on each other and finally, when the climate changed, they vanished.

The major animals of this period are fully and simply described: where and how they lived, what they looked like, and what their place is in the process of evolution. Scientific fact and read-ability are combined with detailed drawings of the animal as it once looked–plus skeletal drawings which indicates clearly the evolutionary changes.

We know prehistoric animals only through the fossils carefully preserved and displayed in museums. From such remains entire animals have been reconstructed, and it is these animals which Mr. Scheele has described and drawn so skillfully. This is a big, lavishly illustrated book filled with fascinating pictures and facts, never before brought together in one volume, about a subject of increasing interest to children and adults.

Graphic tribute to the famous book in The NY Times 08/19/2018